IFI Horrorthon Back for 19th Season this October

IFI Horrorthon returns for its most terrifying, bloodiest season yet, running from 27th to 31st October.

One of the most popular events in the Irish film calendar, the IFI Horrorthon, returns for its 19th season this October. Showcasing the very best in Irish and international horror film, this year’s festival promises to be one of the bloodiest, most terrifying, and most enjoyable yet!

Highlights of this year’s programme include the opening film, Sang-ho Yeon’s Train to Busan, in which passengers on a journey from Seoul to Busan are terrorised by a zombie outbreak. This year’s closing film is the Indonesian thriller Headshot, directed by Kimo Stamboel and Timo Tjahjanto, which centres on an amnesiac nursed back to health by a devoted doctor, until his violent past comes back to haunt him.

Commenting on the launch of the programme, Horrorthon spokesman Mick Fox said, ‘Programming this year proved to be the most rewarding to date. We kept discovering truly excellent genre films that made us programme more new films than ever before. 2016 is an excellent year for horror films, for horror fans, and it can be all enjoyed at IFI, over the Halloween weekend.’

New horror sensation Raw, directed by Julia Ducournau, involves a vegetarian who develops a taste for all types of flesh following a hazing incident in her college. One of the most controversial releases of 2016, an ambulance had to be called to the film’s Toronto Film Festival screening, amid reports of audience members passing out during the film’s more graphic scenes.

Irish films showing at the festival this year include Jason Figgis’s Don’t You Recognise Me?, set in Dublin’s seedy gangland, Zoe Kavanagh’s Demon Hunter, and Mark Sheridan’s Crone Wood, a chiller set in Wicklow that centres on a couple in the first flushes of love who make a disastrous decision to camp out in the eponymous woods overnight. Each of the directors will introduce their respective screenings.

Three classic Peter Cushing films will screen this year as part of the Horrorthon Honours strand: 1971’s Twins of Evil, based on a Sheridan le Fanu story, 1968’s Corruption, and 1970’s The Vampire Lovers. More recent classics also feature as part of the programme with a Friday night double-bill of David Cronenberg’s Oscar- winner The Fly starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, and Stephen Herek’s 1986 comedy horror Critters.

Horror maestro Rob Zombie’s new thriller 31 will screen as an Irish exclusive on the festival’s opening evening. Starring Malcolm McDowell as Father Murder, the film follows five unfortunate carnival workers who end up trapped in a compound at the mercy of a group of sadistic clowns. It’s a film that’s sure to strike fear into the heart of any coulrophobe!

Individual tickets for the IFI Horrorthon films are on sale now in person at the IFI Box Office, by phone on 01-6793477, or online. Multiple film deals are available priced at €45 for 5 films, or €80 for 10 films, while a range of passes ranging from one to five days are also on sale either in person at the IFI Box Office or by phone. As always, there will be range of special treats and offers available from the IFI Café Bar throughout the festival weekend.

The full festival schedule is as follows:-

TUESDAY 18th OCTOBER

20:30 SNEAK PREVIEW: OUIJA: ORIGINS OF EVIL

THURSDAY 27th OCTOBER

19:00 TRAIN TO BUSAN
21.25 FROM A HOUSE ON WILLOW STREET
23.10 31
23.10 DON’T YOU RECOGNISE ME?The screening will be introduced by director Jason Figgis23.20 LOST SOLACE